Labyrinth
by Jellyslugs
Summary: Cobol has tracked down Cobb & his team when they thought they were finally free of them. Previously named Beautiful Nightmares.
1. Cobol

Everyone was smiling, except for Fischer of course. A wave of pure confusion and shock had washed over Saito and Cobb's faces before they realized they had just awoken from limbo after succeeding. Yusuf and Eames simply seemed relieved to be out of the entire mess. Arthur was smirking, glancing around to everyone. Ariadne wasn't sure what to think. She actually had fun during the entire operation, but that was probably only because no one was really shooting at her. Cobb starting smiling towards his teammates while Saito punched numbers into a phone rapidly. Fischer was staring out of the window in deep thought.

What was going to happen now? She didn't want to ask the question aloud, seeing that Fischer was sitting right there. But she was still really curious. She had to get back to France to finish her degree in architecture. She loved architecture, but she loved it even more when she designed the impossible for her dreams. She wanted to be a part of the company that Cobb and Arthur worked for, but she knew they didn't except failure. They were dangerous, and she was probably too young to apply anyways, being that she hadn't even graduated college yet. Did they even pay people? Then she realized a key point about Cobb and Arthur that she had been missing: They had failed in getting information from Saito, Arthur once told her, and they were hiding from Cobol.

"Hey, you okay?" Arthur asked from behind her, snapping her out of thought. He had his usual nonchalant smirk on his face.

She swallowed nervously and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

When they landed, they were all acting distant from each other, as if they didn't know one another. She didn't know what purpose it served or why it was so important, so she went up to Arthur while waiting for her luggage.

"What's Cobol like?" She asked suddenly, trying to keep her voice low.

Arthur only looked at her. She had asked the question before, which was when he had told her about them failing the mission with Saito, and also when he told her that they were dangerous.

"Didn't I already say they aren't to be messed with?" He said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"So I take it you're not going back?"

"Why would I? They want to kill me too." He looked away from her. "And if they find out we involved a college student in our operation, we'd be in even more trouble."

"So that means I can't join the club?"

His face quickly turned back to hers. Arthur looked at her like she was insane. His eyebrows were scrunched together and she was waiting for a serious answer. "Club? Do you even understand—"

"I like what we've been doing." Ariadne said, looking away from him.

"You do think I do too?" He said, grabbing a bag of luggage. "Cobb's right: there's nothing quite like it. But he's going back to his family now," Arthur motioned to Cobb shaking hands with his father. "Don't you have school anyways?"

"I don't want to leave this all behind," she grabbed her luggage. "Can't we have some fun with it? We still have the briefcase." She glanced at the silver case in Arthur's right hand. He chuckled and they began to make their way towards the street and wait for a cab. Cobb was the only one who had a home to go back to. The rest had a hotel to stay at for a few days of sightseeing and then going back to their own homes. Ariadne wondered where Arthur would go since he couldn't go back to Cobol.

They all sat in the cab in awkward silence. Ariadne sat in the very back of the van with Arthur, who she felt the most comfortable with. She pulled out her sketching pad that she would draw new ideas for dream layouts on.

"Paradox?" Arthur said, sneaking a peek at her drawing. She realized she had drawn another closed circle, but this one shaped like a triangle rather than a square. She glanced up at Arthur who was smirking at her. She shut the sketchbook as they grew closer to the hotel. But as the van slowed to a stop, the driver's hand picked up a gun and pointed it directly at Arthur.

"We've been trying to find you." He said. Arthur slowly raised his hands above his head. "Arthur, who are these people?"

He swallowed. "Nobody."

He pressed the trigger. Ariadne squealed, thinking that Arthur had just been murdered, but it was only the leather in the seat that had a hole in it. He glanced at Ariadne, then back at the driver.

"You'll follow me into a hotel room," the driver said, "and we'll work this out there."

Arthur nodded and motioned for Ariadne took get out of the taxi. Through the lobby and the hotel elevators, Arthur and Eames stood on either side of her protectively. When they entered the hotel room, there were four who were standing in the middle of the hotel room, and the fifth one was guarding the door. The 'cab driver' took the silver briefcase Arthur was holding and told them all to put on the wrist strap, including the four men standing in the hotel room.

"Why are we doing this in a dream?" Ariadne whispered to Eames. He laid down on the bed next to her.

"They're probably going to threaten us with guns. If they shot us in a hotel, the other guests would be going insane, darling." He finished as the orange button was pressed and they all drifted off into a dream world.

_Forgetting that she wasn't the one in control of the dream this time, Ariadne imagined them standing on the golden gate bridge in San Francisco. Instead, they were all standing on the top of a building. Ariadne found it weird, since it was so easy to wake up from. They were standing too far from the edge for Ariadne to guess how high the building was, but she guessed several thousands of feet. _

_Ariadne, Eames, Yusuf, and Saito were standing in a line, with a man holding a gun to each of their heads behind them. Arthur was standing about twenty feet in front of them next to the 'cab driver'. _

"_We know you and Cobb have been up to something," he said, walking around Arthur. "We know they have something to do with it. So what were they doing with you?" _

"_They were," Arthur hesitated, "helping us accomplish something." _

"_Accomplish what?" He asked. _

_Arthur glanced at his teammates, not sure if he should answer or not. The man standing behind Saito cocked his gun. _

"_You know as well as I do that shooting him is only going to wake him up." Arthur said. The 'cab driver' nodded once towards the man standing behind Saito. He pointed the gun towards Saito's leg and pulled the trigger. Arthur quickly regretted his words. _

"_What is the man you failed getting information against doing here?" He asked, referring to Saito, who was on the ground, blood spilling everywhere. _

"_He was with us," Arthur said slowly, "making sure we got a job done." _

_The driver stepped closer towards Yusuf, who looked terrified. "What about him?" _

"_He…" Arthur stopped, not sure if he wanted to answer, but the man standing behind Yusuf cocked his gun, making Yusuf shake like a leaf. "He provided us with a strong sedative." _

_The driver took two more steps and stood in front of Eames, who had a ticked off look on his face. "And him?" _

_Arthur's heart began to pound harder. "He's a forger." _

"_A forger?" _

"_He's able to appear as someone else in a dream." Arthur said, feeling bad that he was giving everyone up. _

"_Show me," he said to Eames, whose glare went from Arthur to the driver. For a second Eames was standing there, but the moment everyone blinked, he changed into the beautiful blonde woman he portrayed in the hotel during their inception mission. "Impressive." He said simply. "We could use a man like you, you know," but Eames was still glaring at him as if he wanted to kill. _

_The driver took a few more steps and turned to face Ariadne. Arthur's heart began to pound even faster. "What in the world would you need a young girl for, Arthur?" _

_Arthur glanced worriedly at Ariadne, and glared back to the driver. He looked at Saito. He didn't want the same to happen to Ariadne. He knew how much it hurt to be shot in the leg. "What's the point off all this?" He asked the driver. "Aren't you just going to kill me anyways?" _

_Ariadne's heart jumped. "That's not entirely true," the driver said, still examining Ariadne. "You and Cobb are a couple of our best agents. We could still use you here in America." He stroked a hand against Ariadne's face. "Who is she?" _

_Arthur didn't answer. The man standing behind Ariadne cocked his gun. _

"_She can't just be along for the ride," he said, running his finger down her chin. "Cobb had a good use for her, didn't he?" _

_Arthur still didn't answer. He knew giving away her place meant she could be dragged into what Arthur and Cobb have been doing, and he didn't want that. But knowing Cobol, Arthur knew that they had told Ariadne and Eames too much, and if they didn't join, they would probably be killed. _

"_We can do this all day, Arthur." The driver nodded his head and the man standing behind Ariadne pulled the trigger on his gun, leaving a hole in her leg. Arthur jumped. He was shaking with anger. Ariadne bent over on the ground and held her bleeding leg. _

"_Just leave her alone!" Arthur yelled at the driver. _

"_So she means something to you." He said more as a statement than a question. "Hold her up," he commanded. The man behind Ariadne held her up by her left arm, while the man behind Eames held her up by her right. She looked up at Arthur. Tears of pain were streaming down her face. She didn't understand why he wasn't just telling them what she was to the team. _

"_She's an architect." Arthur said quickly. It hurt to do so, but it hurt him even more to see her in pain. _

"_An architect…" He said, taking a few steps back from Ariadne. "So this is who you replaced Nash with? Cobb must think she's better than him then. Am I right?" _

_Arthur looked away and slowly nodded once. _

"_Show me what you can do." The driver commanded her. She looked up at him in awe. How could he possibly ask her to think about anything other than the pain running through her body? She looked around, trying to get the first idea of what the place reminded her of. She looked to her left and saw a building that was about fifty feet higher than the one she was currently standing on. _

_Trying to forget the pain, she thought of them being the same height. A moment later, the building they were standing on jerked up about fifteen feet. At the same time, the building to their left jerked down about fifteen feet. The same event occurred until the two buildings were about the same height. _

"_You created and destroyed floors of a building," he said in a bored tone. "Any architect could've done that. The only way to judge how good you are is to study the design of the floors." He motioned for Arthur and the two men holding up Ariadne to follow him, but she could walk at all. Instead, she thought of dying and getting the pain over with so she could wake up in a hotel room on a soft bed. _

_As the men began to drag her towards an elevator, they heard jets in the sky. Everyone looked up to see where the loud sounds were coming from. A plane was headed straight towards the top of the building. The men dropped Ariadne and ran towards the edge of the building, jumping off. Arthur ran towards Ariadne while the rest of their team crowded around her. _

"_Are you alright?" He yelled over the sounds of the jets, looking from her leg back to her eyes. "God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to—" _

_He was cut off from the impact of the plane against the building. They were all thrown into the air. One second they were all falling thousands of feet through the sky, the next they awoke in the hotel room. _

Ariadne sat up straight and pulled her pant leg up. It was weird not seeing a hole in her leg after having one a few seconds ago.

"Being able to create a plane in mid air while under pain," the driver nodded to himself. "Nice. I think you'll make an excellent team."

"What makes you think we're going to be a part of some team?" Arthur stood up so he was almost nose to nose with the driver.

"Be happy we're keeping you alive." He said, moving away from Arthur. "As long as you can keep doing as good as you were before whatever mission you just came back from, we'll keep you alive."

"What about Cobb?" Ariadne spoke up. Everyone looked surprised at her. "He's finally back with his family and you're just going to take that away from him?"

"He'll be able to be with his family." Said the driver, closing the briefcase. "Not as much as he'd like to, but he will. I'm going to keep you stationed here in various places in the U.S." He explained. "If you don't want to join, you die. Does anyone not want to join?" Obviously, no one spoke up, so he continued. "Good. We will assign you your first mission tomorrow. I'll make sure Cobb is here with you." And he left.

Arthur sat down in a chair, disappointed in himself.

"So just like that we're a part of a team." Eames said. "Do we get paid?"

Arthur threw him a do-you-really-need-to-ask-that-now look. "Yes, we do."

"So what's the big problem joining this?" Eames asked.

Arthur just looked frustrated. "They don't accept failure. If we fail, we die."

"But you've never failed," Ariadne said, "So aren't we fine as long as we don't fail?"

"We failed once, with Saito." He pointed at him. "But now that he's part of some team I guess his company doesn't matter anymore."

Ariadne didn't want to say that she liked the idea of going on illegal missions as a full time job. But that meant that she left her parents wondering where she was since she wouldn't be able to tell them everything.

"So if you didn't like doing this," Ariadne asked, "then why did you take them up on their offer?"

"Because my life wasn't very exciting. Cobb found me and asked me to help him. Cobol found out that I was helping him and they asked me to join. I said yes before I knew what the risks were, but I still like they're missions, most of the time. I just didn't want to drag all of you into this." He took a long look at Ariadne and sighed.

"I'm all for it," Eames said, standing up from the bed.

"I'm fine with it," Ariadne said, "I'm just not sure what my parents will think when all I can tell them is that I'm traveling."

"I guess I can't exactly say no," Yusuf said nervously.

"Cobb's going to kill me for this." Arthur put his hands on his forehead. Ariadne wasn't sure what to say. She knew Cobb would probably be mad, but Arthur didn't have a choice. They all would've been taken away and killed if they refused, and so would have Cobb.

"Well I'm going to go check into my hotel room." Saito said, getting out of a chair. Yusuf followed.

"I'll check us in too," Eames told Arthur, who nodded absent mindedly.

Once the door closed, Arthur spoke. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have told them you were our architect—"

"No it's okay," she cut him off. "Really, I'm fine with doing this."

Arthur didn't say anything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his red die. He rolled a two.

"How do you know you're dreaming?" Ariadne asked.

He looked at her and smiled. He was happy that she asked a question that was so unrelated to their problem at hand. "If I'm dreaming," he explained, picking up the die and showing it to her, "then I'll always roll an eight."

"An eight?"

"It looks like a six but has two more dots," he teased her.

"I know how to do math!" He laughed at her. She grabbed a pillow off the bed and whacked his head with it.

He smiled at her for a moment. "We should check into our rooms. This one isn't ours."

"_Do you know what it's like to be a lover?" Mal's voice drifted around her._ _"To be half of a whole?" _

"_No…" _

Ariadne's eyes fluttered open to the sound of someone knocking on her door. "Rise and shine, darling." Eames' voice didn't convince Ariadne that he was completely awake either though. "We're going down to breakfast."

"I'll be down there in a little bit." She rinsed off her face and dried it with a towel. It was then that she realized she had dreamt last night, but not knowingly. The last time she had dreamt unknowingly was before Arthur told her about a totem, which reminded her. She walked over to the nightstand and grabbed the golden chess piece. She set it down and flicked it. With all the practice that Cobb and Arthur had given her, she could already tell when something was real and when something was a dream, but Cobb told her to use her totem every now and then just to make sure.

The only part she remembered about her dream was that Mal's voice had asked her something, but couldn't remember what it was. _What's she doing in my dream anyways? _She quickly got dressed, stuffed her totem in her pocket, and ran down to the hotel's restaurant. She found Arthur's slicked back hair instantly. He still looked half asleep, dragging his finger around the rim of his coffee cup. Then he saw the back of a head of dirty blonde hair and began to speed walk towards their table. Eames was trying to roll some sort of coin across the table. It took a few seconds for Ariadne to realize that it was a poker chip.

"Is that your totem?" Ariadne asked as she sat down.

Arthur snapped out of his daze and looked at Ariadne, who sat in the middle of him and Eames.

"Clever, isn't it?" He said, picking it up and showing it to her.

She turned her attention to the dirty blonde sitting across from her. "Cobb, when did you get here?"

"This morning," he said, irritated. "A man from Cobol came to my house and threatened to kill my family and eventually me if I didn't continue my work here." He glared at Arthur whose eyes were once again focused on the dark brown liquid in his cup. "Eames is the only person here besides me and Arthur that knows how to do what we do. We hired him for more difficult jobs." He took a sip of his coffee. "We're going to have to teach the rest how things work.

"Ariadne, in all the worlds you create, you must make a vault or a safe." Cobb explained once their food had been served. He took bites of egg.

"Where does the vault need to be?" She remembered when he was telling her about the 'vaults' in people's minds back in their first lesson.

"Anywhere," Cobb answered after chewing. "It just depends on the person. Saito's was in a room behind some doors."

"Thanks for telling everyone where it is." Saito said sarcastically.

Throughout breakfast, Cobb began to explain what everyone else was in charge of. Saito and Yusuf were pretty much there for defending the team. As they all knew, Cobb would steal the information, Arthur would research the target, Ariadne would create the dream world, and Eames would change into any person they needed. If they didn't need him, he would also be there for defenses.

After breakfast, they all went back to Arthur and Eames' hotel room and began strapping on the wristbands. Saito was the one to stay back that time around.

"Whose subconscious are we going into?" Arthur asked.

"Ariadne's." Cobb said simply. Ariadne's heart jumped and she looked up at Arthur, who was also looking at her. He quickly looked away and cleared his throat nervously.

"Wait, what kind of place am I supposed to create?" Ariadne asked before everyone laid down.

"Anything." Cobb said and they drifted under. The first thing to pop into Ariadne's mind was when she was dragging the mirrors to make a bridge in her first dream lesson with Cobb. The last thing was the infinite staircase used in their inception mission and her first lesson with Arthur.

_Cobb, Arthur, Ariadne, Eames, and Yusuf were standing on a staircase. Ariadne realized it wasn't a normal staircase that she created, but an infinite one. The walls around the staircase were made of mirrors. There was nothing else. It seemed like a giant glass box. _

"_This isn't exactly what I meant by 'anything', Ariadne." Cobb said, trying to go down the stairs to the floor, but ended up going in a circle. _

"_Paradox," Arthur muttered loud enough for Ariadne to hear. She smiled. _

"_Relax," she said nonchalantly. She began walking down the steps with Arthur next to her. "There's more here than just what you're seeing." Unlike Cobb, Ariadne and Arthur were able to step onto the ground (which was also a mirror). _

_Cobb gave them a look, "How did you do that?" But he, Yusuf, and Eames were able to follow. Ariadne was a little afraid of what she was going to find in her safe. She didn't know what deep dark secret she was hiding from everyone else. She _didn't _have any secrets like that, did she? If someone had to find out with her, she wanted it to be Cobb. She had (without his permission) found out secrets about him that he didn't want anyone else to know. If there was something in there that she didn't want anyone else to know, Cobb was the only one she felt comfortable with knowing. _

_She finally found what she was looking for: A hole in the ground. She pulled her totem out of her pocket and stuck the golden chess piece into the hole. It fit perfectly. A black line in the shape of a square appeared in the ground. She fit her fingernails in the line, grasped the thin door, and opened it. _

"_I am impressed." Ariadne practically jumped at the sound of Arthur's voice. She hadn't noticed that he and Cobb were standing behind her. Arthur was smirking. Before she jumped down into the room, she gave Cobb a hesitated look, hoping he would get the message. He made a slight understanding nod and she jumped down into the room. _

"_You guys stay here." Cobb said, climbing into the hole in the ground. "We'll be right back." _

_Neither Cobb nor Ariadne saw it, but Arthur eyebrows scrunched up angrily. _Why does he get to go down there and not me? _He thought. He closed the small door behind them. _

_The room was plain. It had gray walls, a gray floor, and a black safe that was about the size of someone's head sitting on top of a gray table in the back of the room. "Why don't you want anyone else down here?" Cobb asked as they slowly walked towards the safe. _

"_I'm not sure what's in there, and I'm not sure I want anyone else to see." _

"_You don't know your own secrets?" _

"_Well I have an idea." She said, trying to think of the numbers that the safe would be. "And if it's really in there, I don't want anyone to see. But it's fine if you know, I guess, since I know a lot of your secrets." The only combination she could think of was her credit card pin number: six-one-four-one. She tapped it in and the safe clicked open. Her heart pounding, she slid her fingers down the side of the door and opened it. And just what she had feared would be inside was sitting right there. She used her fingernails to pick up the photograph of her kiss with Arthur during their inception mission. She stood there and stared at the picture for a long moment. _

"_Is that Arthur?" Cobb asked from over Ariadne's shoulder, making her jump. She turned to face him and held the photo protectively in her hands. "Is that you and Arthur?" Ariadne's mouth was open, but she didn't answer. Cobb chuckled. "When did that happen?" She still didn't answer, so he held out his hand, silently asking to see the photograph._

"_Well it didn't actually happen," she said as she gave it to him, "It was during a dream." _

"_Well if his actual person was in the dream too then it did actually happen." He studied the photo. "Was this during our mission yesterday?" _

_She blushed. _

"_Why are you so afraid of the others finding this?" He asked, giving the photo back to her. _

"_It's not that I'm afraid of other people knowing about it," she explained. "I'm afraid that they'll know that—"_

"_That you liked it?" He nodded understandingly, knowing the answer to his own question. _

"_Yeah," she put the photo inside the safe and closed it. _

_Cobb changed the subject. "This kind of safe is good, only the totem lock wouldn't work for anybody. That would mean we need their exact totem." _

"_I only designed it that way because this is my safe." She said stubbornly. She and Cobb looked up at the door they came through. It was a good ten feet off the ground, too high for either of them to reach. Ariadne looked at the floor and a metal ladder instantly began to form in front of them. Cobb went first. When Ariadne started climbing up and reached the top of the ladder, she half expected Arthur to be the one to help her out, but he was sitting at the bottom of the infinite staircase. Cobb and Eames pulled her out of the room. _

"_Well I don't think that this place was the _best _example," Cobb threw Ariadne a joking glare. _

"_So, what now?" Yusuf asked. _

"_Well, usually, there would be armed men attacking us." Cobb said, walking towards the staircase. "So we're going to try this again." _

"_Where are you going?" Ariadne asked. He stopped and looked at her. _

"_I was going to use the kick at the top of the staircase." He pointed to the top of the infinite stairs. _

_Ariadne looked down at her reflection in the ground. She bent over and touched hands with her reflection and the glass broke, letting them fall. _

"That didn't last very long." Saito said as they all awoke.

"We were only there for ten minutes," Cobb said. No one even bothered to un-strap themselves from the machine.

"What was the whole point of that dream?" Arthur asked sharply. His eyebrows were still scrunched together.

"Eames, trade with Saito," Cobb said, ignoring Arthur.

"Why do I have to stay here?" Eames asked, looking offended.

"Because we're losing time and I want to make sure both Yusuf and Saito know exactly what we're going to be doing. We don't know when Cobol agents are going to give us our first mission and we need to be ready."

"We've already had training from people shooting at us." Saito said as he put on the wrist strap.

"Yes," Cobb said, "but I want to make sure you know _exactly _what we're going through."

"Are we going back into my subconscious?" Ariadne asked.

"No, we're going into Arthur's." Cobb said as he closed his eyes.

"What!" Arthur's head flung forward. "Why mine?"

Even Ariadne was giving Cobb a look. Cobb looked back at her and winked, leaving Ariadne confused. "I want you to use your subconscious training to shoot at us." It wasn't really the answer to Arthur's question, but Arthur had the most subconscious security training (besides Cobb himself).

Before Arthur could say anything, Eames pressed the orange button and they all relaxed into a dream. Not having much time to think up a complex area where they could search for Arthur's secrets, she used one of her memories.

_Ariadne was holding onto Cobb on the back of the motorcycle. They were riding through the same town in Paris that she was in with Cobb in their first lesson. They drove passed the café and the small bridge made by Ariadne. So it wasn't a _real _memory. _

"_Why aren't we in a car?" Cobb yelled through his motorcycle helmet. "Why not in a car with more protection?" _

"_I didn't think about too many details this time." She yelled back. _

_A car behind them honked and they all pulled up on the side of the street. _

"_Why are we here?" Cobb asked as he pulled off his helmet. _

"_I didn't have much time to come up with a design. I thought this place would do." _

"_Ariadne," Yusuf asked as he got out of the car, "why is the city upside down?" Ariadne looked up to see what he was referring to. Half of the city was folding on top of the half they were already standing on. _

"_I forgot I did that when I was in a lesson with Cobb." _

"_Where's Arthur?" Saito asked. _

"_Well I asked him to attack us," Cobb said, reaching for a gun, "he's not going to be with us." He held out a gun in his hand for Ariadne to take. _

"_No, I can't." She tried to wave it away, but he put it in her hands. "I don't even know how to use—"_

_She was cut off by the sound of bullets being shot at them. All four of them ran and hid behind the car. As bullets continued to be fired their way, Cobb started giving orders. _

"_Ariadne, where's the safe?" He asked anxiously. _

"_It should be directly above us." She pointed and the four of them looked up at the folded over half of the city. The building looked slightly different from the rest. The sounds of guns clicking got closer and they jumped into the car. Ariadne jumped over the driver's seat and into the passenger's seat. _

"_It's a bank vault?" Cobb asked worriedly, starting the car. _

"_I—I guess. I didn't know. What does that mean?" _

"_It means that he has heavily guarded secrets." And he began driving the car at seventy miles an hour. "Yusuf and Saito—you two will cover me and Ariadne as we go into the bank. When we're inside the bank, Ariadne, I need you to cover me inside the lobby of the bank." _

"_Why me?" She asked as she looked around. She didn't see Arthur yet, which probably meant he was in or in front of the bank. _

"_Because none of them will be shooting at you."_

"_Why wouldn't they be shooting at me?" She turned her attention fully towards Cobb who didn't answer. He was too busy running various red lights and dodging other cars and bullets. The car was coming closer to the fold of the city, which just seemed like a giant wall. Ariadne focused on the bottom of the 'wall' that connected with the ground they were already driving on. The street bulged out and curved so that the car could drive over it. _

"_Haven't I already told you not to change the dream's surroundings?" Cobb yelled. _

"_What's the big deal?" Ariadne retorted. "They already know that I'm the dreamer—" _

_A white van pulled up in front of Cobb's car, causing him to slam on his brakes. Ten men that looked like they were a SWAT team jumped out of the back of the van and started shooting at the car. Ariadne shrieked and ducked. _

"_I thought you said they wouldn't be shooting at me!" She said, shrieking as more bullets hit her seat. Running over two of the shooters, Cobb because to drive passed them. Yusuf and Saito stuck their arms and heads out of the windows to shoot at the SWAT team. _

"_They were probably trying to hit us and accidentally almost got you." Cobb explained. _

"_So can you tell me why they won't shoot _me_?" She asked again, but he ignored her again. The SWAT team's van was following them. Ariadne thought of the freight train that burst through the city on their inception mission, and suddenly it was driving through this town, blocking the van and everyone else that was following them. Ariadne knew it wouldn't be too long before more showed up from other parts of the town, but it bought them some time. _

"_Would you stop changing things?" Cobb yelled. _

"_Why? What's the big—?"_

"_If we were doing this for real, we couldn't just change anything we wanted to. The subconscious would figure out who the dreamer is too easily." Cobb was still glaring at the road as he spoke. "The only difference is that, if Arthur were on our side, we would've known how much defenses we were up against." _

_Arthur was standing in front of his bank vault waiting to shoot Cobb. He hoped his subconscious wasn't shooting at (or already shot) Ariadne. He didn't like how pained she looked after she awoke that one day when Mal stabbed her in her first lesson with Cobb, or how she had looked when that man shot her foot the day before. It made this rage fill his insides. He knew why. It was the exact reason why he had his secrets so heavily protected. _

_He pulled his totem out of his pocket and rolled it: an eight. He wanted to make sure that he wasn't about to shoot the real Cobb. That there was no possible chance that Ariadne could really die during this. Why couldn't Ariadne just have stayed back instead of Eames? Why did she have to be a part of their missions at all anyways? He still hated himself for dragged her into all their Cobol business. It was true: he liked it when they were together in the hotel on the inception mission; when he was able to make an excuse for stealing a kiss from her that left him heavily dazed. _

_Of course he didn't want to shoot Cobb in real life, but since he could do it in a dream, why not? He respected the fact that Ariadne needed some privacy, he could understand that. What he didn't understand was why she let Cobb go down with her. She and Cobb shared so many secrets together. It made Arthur's blood boil. He knew Cobb was still in love with Mal, even if she were dead, but even only thinking about Ariadne possibly having feelings for him put pains in his chest. Arthur's subconscious was probably going crazy trying to kill Cobb at the moment. Being point man, Arthur wasn't supposed to overreact to anything. He was always supposed to remain calm and keep things going in the right direction. But when it came to certain terms, of course he was going to overreact. _

_One thing that Arthur didn't understand was why he was putting Ariadne, Saito, and Yusuf through a bunch of gunfire, when that wasn't really what their extraction missions contained most of the time. It usually contained of one level of dreaming that was the target's real life, which meant that the architect might have to redesign the target's home, and another layer of dreaming that the target may or may not know is a dream, depending on the plan. It usually didn't involve much gunfire at all, unless, like Fischer, the target has some subconscious security training. He knew Cobb's answer would be something like he wanted to put them through the worst of it, but still. Arthur never fully understood Cobb. _

_While he rolled his loaded die again, he heard gunshots and yelling coming from the lobby of the bank. _

"_Where's Arthur?" Ariadne asked, yelling over the gunshots and yelling. Cobb was right: they weren't trying to shoot Ariadne. In the meantime, she was still getting the hang of using a gun. She didn't like the feel of it; she hoped she could stay undercover with Arthur again in future missions. The memory of sitting next to Arthur in the hotel on their inception mission flooded her mind, and was followed by their kiss. _

"_I don't know!" Cobb yelled back, snapping Ariadne out of her thoughts. "I didn't want him to go as far as the actual vault; I really doubt he'd let me in." He shot a few more projections while Ariadne was still fumbling with her gun. "I wanted him to stay out here, but his subconscious is doing a good enough job." Cobb shot down the last projection and ran over to Saito and Yusuf, telling them it was okay to come inside. They locked the door behind them to keep anymore projections from attacking. _

"_Arthur!" Cobb called out, but there was no answer. They had no choice but to go look for him deeper into the row of vaults. But when they got there, there was only one safe—Arthur's safe, which was four times bigger than Ariadne's—and Arthur who was standing in front of it, holding a machine gun pointed at Cobb. Arthur shot, but Cobb jumped out of the way. _

"_Arthur! What are you doing? It's over; we're done." Cobb held his hands above his head. _

"_I thought I was supposed to shoot at you." He said, lowering the machine gun. _

"_I didn't mean at your vault." Cobb said, lowering his voice. Arthur dropped the gun. "I meant with all the projections but they did a pretty good job by their selves." Even when he hid his true feelings as he walked toward the exit of the bank, Cobb and Ariadne could tell he was mad about something, which is why his projections were trying so hard to kill Cobb. "What was with that anyways?" _

"_With what?" Arthur asked, not looking back at them. _

"_With your projections attacking us so much." Before he continued, he held his gun up and shot Yusuf and Saito, and swept his leg behind and under Ariadne's legs, making her fall backwards. Cobb and Arthur both knew how much she hated waking up from being killed in a dream, so he used the kick instead. _

"_What the hell was that?" Arthur had already turned around when he heard Cobb's gun going off. _

"_Are you mad because I went down to Ariadne's safe and you didn't?" Cobb asked, getting closer to Arthur. Arthur's heart jumped at the sound of her name, but he kept a straight face all the while. _

"_Why do you go into her vault but not mine?" He asked. "More importantly, why does she only let _you_ see her secrets?" _

"_Because we've already shared so many secrets together," Cobb said calmly. "I was wondering if what I thought was in hers was really in there, and she can't say no to letting me in after she ran around in my dreams so much." _

_Arthur's blood was boiling, but decided to just turn around and walk away. Cobb cocked his gun. The instant Arthur heard him do so, he pulled a handgun out of his pocket and cocked it. _

_They stared at each other for a moment, but knew the fastest way to get out of the dream was to just kill each other. They had done it so many other times in the past anyways. _

"_One…" Cobb counted. _

"_Two…" Arthur counted with him. _

"_Three." Cobb finished and both of their guns clicked. _

"Why'd you shoot Saito and Yusuf?" Ariadne asked as Cobb and Arthur awoke.

"I needed to talk to Arthur." Cobb said, un-strapping the wristband.

"So what was the point of all that?" Arthur asked, also un-strapping his wrist.

"What do you—"

"The entire practice mission." Arthur cut Cobb off. "That's not how our usual missions go. We usually don't need guns but for a bullet or two."

"The only mind here that hasn't been trained is Ariadne's and we've already tried hers. There's nothing interesting there." He teased, giving her an offended look. "Besides, isn't it better to be prepared for the worst?"

_How did I know that he was going to say something like that? _Thought Arthur.

"I still find it weird," Eames said to Arthur while they got ready for bed that night, "that any Cobol agents showed up today."

"Why can't you just be happy for once?" Eames said, plopping down on his bed.

"Why should I?" Arthur said stubbornly. "This doesn't mean they're going to leave us alone. This doesn't mean she's safe."

"She?" Eames repeated, sitting up.

"What do you mean 'she'?" Arthur asked, confused.

"You said 'she's not safe'." Eames said, smirking and raising an eyebrow. "Or something like that."

Arthur's heart jumped and he looked away, trying to keep his usual calm and nonchalant look on his face.

"Just go talk to her," Eames said, reading Arthur's mind.

"What am I supposed to say?" Arthur held his forehead in his hands. "'Hey, Ariadne. Sorry for acting so stupid'?"

Eames didn't bother to say anything to Arthur. He only raised one of his eyebrows and smirked. Arthur already knew what Eames would say to him. He would tell Arthur that Ariadne was thinking Arthur was mad at her, when that wasn't really the case.

Arthur began to change into the clothes he was wearing that day. Eames understood why: he always wanted to look his best in front of her, instead of wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. He finished changing and headed over to the hotel room next to his.

He knocked on the door. "Ariadne," his voice almost cracked on the last syllable. He cleared his throat. After a few seconds of no answer, he knocked on the door again. "Ariadne…?" He began to panic and started pounding on the door. "Ariadne!" He yelled.

While Arthur was busy assuming the worst had happened to Ariadne, Eames was pick-pocketing the passing maid's keycard. Arthur stopped banging on the door when Eames cleared his throat, silently telling him to move. They keycard slid in and the green light flashed, accepting the key. They turned the knob to find her already asleep on the bed closest to the window. She was still wearing her day clothes. Even her shoes were still on, and so was the lamp next to her. _ She must have passed out, _Arthur thought. He eyebrows were scrunched together as if she were frustrated, and her head was tossing back and forth in her sleep.

Arthur was so focused on the sleeping brunette that he didn't notice Eames going into the other room to get the briefcase. He came back, holding it up next to Arthur, who looked at Eames like he was crazy.

"What?" Eames asked.

"You expect me to go into her dreams and—?"

"Why not?" Eames closed to hotel room's door.

Arthur had to think for a few seconds. "Because it's an invasion of privacy…" But no matter how wrong it might be, Arthur was really curious what she was dreaming about and why it was making her toss in her sleep. Without Arthur's permission, Eames proceeded to set up the briefcase on the bed. Arthur slowly walked over to Ariadne's bed and pulled up a chair next to her. With his careful fingers, Eames strapped the wristband on Ariadne, trying not to wake her up. Arthur swallowed his guilt and strapped one on as well.

"You're not going too, are you?" Arthur asked.

"Nope," Eames smirked. "This is just for you and Ariadne." He pressed the orange button and Arthur took a deep breath, relaxing into sleep.

_When Arthur opened his eyes, he was standing in a hallway with only walls on the ends. In front of him were five doors, equally spaced three feet apart from one another. He wasn't quite sure where to go, so he randomly picked the second one from the left. _

_As he opened it, the smell of coffee filled his nose. The walls were light peach colour. On the other side of the room there was an ebony table with a bowl of fruit in the middle and a woman sitting at it, looking out the window, which had a nice view of the ocean. To the right he saw an opening in the wall which seemed to be the kitchen. He slowly walked forward to the woman. But she wasn't who he thought she was. The woman had dark brown curly hair, but long, not short like Mal's. The only other physical features Arthur could make out were her fair skin and long, skinny legs. He didn't remember Ariadne having such long legs. She was still in her pajamas: a silk nightgown with spaghetti straps. She was twirling a ring between her fingers. _

_As Arthur stepped on the floor, the wood under him creaked and the woman swiftly turned her heard around. Arthur almost jumped when he realized the woman was not Ariadne, but what appeared to be her sister. She couldn't have been more than eight or ten years older than Ariadne. _

"_What are you doing here?" She asked, keeping her tone calm. _

"_Uh," He breathed, "I'm—"_

"_I didn't ask who you are," she snapped, her tone sharp now. "I already know who you are; I asked you what you are doing here." _

_It had slipped Arthur's mind that, if the dreamer already knows you, then their subconscious' projections will as well. _

"_I'm in one of Ariadne's dreams?" Arthur asked nervously, not answering the woman's question. _

"_No," she answered, her tone calm again. "This is real."_

_Arthur knew he was in a dream though. _Ariadne must not have yet realized that she's dreaming yet_, Arthur thought. Arthur then realized that this woman could be anyone, but obviously someone closely related to her, since they looked so much alike. _

_The woman waited for Arthur to speak again, but he just stood there. She grabbed a green apple from the bowl of fruit and left the ring on the table. After watching the woman for a second, Arthur continued. "What just happened?" _

"_Her father just left," she said simply, sitting back down on the table. She bit into the green fruit, holding it in her left hand while she began to toy with the ring again in her right hand. Then it hit Arthur in the face who this woman was. It couldn't be her sister because she said "her father" instead of "our father", and she was holding a diamond ring in her hand. _

"_Are you her mother?" He asked, already knowing the answer. He walked closer to the table. She wasn't looking at him; she was staring out at the window again. _

"_Yes," she said. Her tone sounded as if it expected another question. _

"_How old is she?" The dream seemed too serious for it to be one of Ariadne's dreams. Arthur was pretty sure it was a memory of hers. _

_The woman took awhile to answer, in a dramatic pause sort of way more than she was trying to figure out her own daughter's age. "Six." _

_Arthur was shocked; Ariadne's father had left her fourteen years ago, and yet she still seemed to be one of the most carefree people Arthur had ever met. _

"_She was yelling at me," the woman continued, "about how I didn't do anything to stop him. She ran out into the front yard to get him, but he was already gone. She cried a lot." But even with the last sentence, the woman still seemed completely un-phased. _

_Arthur was, again, shocked at how little she seemed to care about her own daughter and husband. But he continued to keep a calm look on his face. _

"_Where did she go?" Arthur asked. He knew that, because Ariadne was dreaming, she wouldn't create a double of herself to portray herself in memories for her. She would relive the memories herself, while her projections continued to go on the way she had thought they did after she left. _

"_That way," she pointed towards the door Arthur had come through, biting into the apple again. She still didn't look at Arthur all the while. Arthur didn't bother to say 'thank you'. He didn't really like the woman. He left the way he came, shutting the door behind him. He felt even guiltier of invading her privacy than he had when he first entered her dream world. _

_Arthur wanted to find Ariadne, but wasn't sure where to find her. He also wanted to go into one of her more recent memories, so he turned left and began walking towards the end of the hall. _

"_Mom, you can't stop me!" screamed. Her mom's hair was shorter here, more like Mal's. She looked almost exactly the same, but you could tell she was getting much older. _

"_Why won't you listen to me?" Her mother yelled back. "Why you want to follow in your dad's footsteps? You're going to leave me and become an architect like him—"_

"_Mom, I'm only leaving you because I have to go to college!" Ariadne said. "You didn't even care about dad leaving us, and why can't I be an architect like him? It doesn't mean I'm going to turn into him!" _

_But her mom wasn't listening. She was too angry with her daughter. Ariadne saw the anger flaring in her mother's eyes as she began to pick up a white glass plate. Ariadne's eyes widened in fear and her mom threw it at her. Ariadne dodged it, missing it by an inch. The plate shattered against the walls and her mom continued to take glass plates out of the cupboard and throw them at her daughter, while Ariadne repeatedly dodged them and hid behind furniture. _

_Then Arthur walked through the door. Ariadne's mom, still being in a rage, grabbed a vase, with the water and flowers still inside of it, and threw it at Arthur. He covered in face, but it hit him square in the chest. It soaked the front of his shirt and he got cut on the front of his neck, his forearms, and hands. Arthur took a good look at Ariadne. She didn't look any different than when he had seen her that day. She still looked twenty years old, while her mom was a completely different story. Arthur saw an ash tray on the table that had a fruit bowl in the last memory of Ariadne's he had visited. Ariadne's mother had bags under her eyes and various wrinkles—the kind people got from smoking, not from old age. But she looked a lot older than she had before. _

"_Arthur!" Ariadne yelled, running over to him. Her mom finally stopped throwing glass around. "What…What's going on?" The ground began to vibrate; her subconscious was realizing it was a dream while her mind was trying to wake her up. She looked around at the shaking room. _

"_Calm down," Arthur told her, lightly resting his hands on her arms. She nodded, put her hands over her eyes and spun around three times. Cobb thought her that, in the event she realized she was in a dream and began to panic like she just had done, to spin around three times, instead of having the dream explode like in her first lesson with him. The room stopped shaking. She almost fell over from the dizziness, but Arthur caught her. _

"_I'm dreaming?" She said, taking a deep breath. "I'm dreaming," she answered herself. _

"_I'm guessing these are memories of yours." He said as they turned to face Ariadne's fuming mother. _

"_You're right," she said after a moment of thinking. "It's why this feels so familiar." Ariadne tried taking a step toward her mother, who was shaking with anger. _

"_You're going to leave me like your father!" She screamed at her daughter. Ariadne jumped back. Arthur stood behind her, making sure she didn't slip on any of the pieces of broken glass. _

"_No, mom, I'll be back!" Ariadne tried yelling to get her mom's attention, but she was getting more plates from wherever she could find them. Now she was busy digging them out of the dishwasher. "I—" Her mom threw a plate; Arthur grabbed her, pulling her out of the way. "I promise!" But as her mom threw another plate at them, they were running out the door. Arthur shut it behind them as they heard her mom scream in anger. _

_Even after a few moments, Ariadne was still staring at the door in front of them. Arthur's hands were still grasped around her arms from pulling her out of the way. _

"_What are you doing here?" Ariadne asked Arthur once she finally got a hold of herself. _

"_What was just going on?" Arthur asked, ignoring Ariadne's question in fear of what she might say. _

"_I told my mom," she paused, hesitating. "I told my mom I was going to move to France for Architecture College." _So she was about eighteen in that one, _Arthur concluded. _

"_And she didn't want you to be like your dad." He finished. _

"_How would you know that?" She asked, scrunching her eyebrows together. _

"_I went into one of your older memories," he said, waiting for her to get mad. But she never did. "I was wondering what you were dreaming about." _

"_Which one?" _

_Arthur looked at Ariadne, surprised she wasn't angry with him for invading her privacy. "When your dad left." _

_She looked away absentmindedly and nodded slowly. "Are you okay?" She asked after a few moments. _

"_What?" He looked down at the cuts from the glass vase. "Oh, these? I'm fine," he said casually and smiled. She smiled back, relieved. "What's through that door?" Arthur asked, pointing towards the door to the left of the one they had just come out of. _

"_I'm not sure," she said, staring at it. _

"_Why are _these _memories here?" _

"_I'm not sure," she repeated. She stepped forward and opened the door. Arthur followed behind her. They saw a teenage boy standing with his back to them, and holding up a bike to his side. He was tall, lean, and had shaggy, dirty blonde hair. They weren't in a room like the other two memories; they were on a pier behind a bench that the boy was standing next to. It had a great view of the ocean. _

_The boy turned around to look at Ariadne and Arthur; he had light brown eyes and looked about eighteen. Ariadne knew what memory it was now. The boy dropped the bike and ran over to Ariadne, grasping her arms in his hands. Arthur began to feel that angry burning feeling in his stomach again. _

"_Are you okay?" The boy said frantically. "What do you need to talk about?" _

"_This is where I broke up with my high school boyfriend." Ariadne said, looking up at the blonde boy. He acted as if he hadn't heard the words, since Ariadne wasn't able to change the memory. He only stood there, waiting for an answer. _

"_How old are you here?" Arthur asked anxiously. _

"_Eighteen," she answered, still not looking at him. Arthur felt relieved that she wouldn't date someone a lot older than her, but because Arthur was a few years older than her, that counted him out. "This was only a couple weeks before I told my mom I was moving to France."_

"_You're just going to leave?" He asked, starting to sound disappointed. Arthur knew that, even though Ariadne hadn't spoken the exact words as they were in her memory, the scene would continue on as if she had. _

"_I told him I was going to France for college," she explained, "but that wasn't all of it. I truthfully didn't want to date him anymore, but I told him I didn't want to keep seeing him because I wouldn't be able to keep up a long distance relationship." Arthur knew she had tweaked the truth to her boyfriend because she was trying to downplay what she was really feeling. He could tell by the look on her face. _

_But even though she had downplayed the truth, the boy brought his right hand up and slapped Ariadne across the face. Arthur ran forward, pushing the boy away from Ariadne to put space in between them. His arm was protectively in front of her while Ariadne was holding a hand up to her cheek. _

"_So you're not even going to give us a chance?" He yelled. Some people walking by were staring at them. "Do you not care about us at all?" He yelled, stepping closer to them. Ariadne was looking at the floor, still holding her cheek. Arthur pulled Ariadne away, not wanting to see what was going to happen next. He pulled her through the door and shut it behind them as the boy continued to scream. _

"_If you knew what was going to happen then why did you just stand there?" He asked forcefully, almost yelling at her. He took a couple steps back from her. Ariadne didn't answer; she was looking at the floor absentmindedly and holding her cheek. It had turned red now. "Are you okay?" He asked after giving her a couple minutes to relax. _

"_Yeah," she breathed. "I-I'm fine," she insisted, but she was still holding her cheek. She finally took a glance at Arthur, who looked unconvinced. He gently led her over to the wall where they sat down, leaning up against it so they were looking at the doors. _

"_So are these memories you don't like?" Arthur asked. "Memories you regret?" _

"_Not exactly," she said. She was still looking at the floor, but her hand wasn't up against her cheek anymore. "I don't really regret what I did in them. I couldn't stop my dad from leaving, no matter what I did and I had to tell my mom and boyfriend that I was moving to France, but I do wish that they had reacted differently." _

"_What do you mean?"_

"_I wish my mom helped trying to stop my dad from leaving. I wish she and my boyfriend didn't get so mad when I told them I was leaving." _

_Arthur understood. "So these are memories that still really bother you?" _

"_Well," she paused, "yes, these are memories that I really don't like. But I haven't really thought about them for awhile now." _

"_Which memories did you visit so far?" _

"_Only those two," she pointed to the ones the last two doors, the ones they had went through together. _

"_Do you know what's behind the other doors?" Arthur sat forward anxiously. _

_She had to think for a second. "The first one," she began, "I'm pretty sure is this argument I saw my mom and dad having when I was five. I had seen arguments between them before, but this one was more like a fight." Arthur just looked at her, waiting for her to continue, but she was staring at the door absentmindedly. "My dad flipped over the coffee table and my mom threw picture frames at him. I was sitting on the stairs watching. The picture frames were pictures of them two or all three of us."_

"_You have a pretty strong mind for a memory you experienced when you were five." Arthur said, trying to cheer her up. _

_She chuckled once, sadly. "It's not something you can just forget about, if you know what I mean." She looked at him. He was nodded, understanding. "You told me the second one was when my dad left. But if I never went in there, how did it happen yet?" _

"_The projections in a dream will act accordingly. When you relive a memory in a dream, the projections will usually act out what happened in the memory." _

"_But when you showed up, my mom through a vase at you, even though that never happened." _

"_That's because you were surprised to see me. You were confused about what was happening, so the projection acted accordingly." She looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face. "It's confusing," he said, "I know." He continued on with what he was originally explaining. "If you ask your projections questions, they'll only answer questions they know or the way they know them. For example, when I asked your mom if you were dreaming she said it was real. She said that because that's what you thought; you thought it was real." _

"_So if you don't know that you're dreaming and you relive a memory, then the memory will go on?" She asked. _

_Arthur nodded, "because you don't know that it's really a dream. You're subconscious really thinks that you're living what's happening." _

"_So, if this is a dream, why can't I change the memories?" _

"_Because when you found out that they were memories, your subconscious knew that it something that really happened. Your subconscious knows that you can't change memories." Ariadne still looked a little confused. "What's in the middle one?" They turned their attention back towards the doors. _

"_I think that's when…" She began, but she drifted off as she began to realize what it was. "It's when me and my mom found out my dad had died. My mom was asked to identify the body." Her voice began to get shaky. _

"_How old were you?" He asked, trying to be gentle to her feelings. _

"_Fourteen," she whispered, trying to hold back tears. _

_Arthur put his arms around Ariadne. She leaned into him, not hugging him back, but silently giving him permission to hold her. He moved his right hand to the back of her head while his left arm wrapped around her entire back as she moved into him more. Ariadne buried her face into his chest, clutching his jacket in her hands. His lips were at the top of her head in her hair as she began to cry. She felt safe and comfortable in his arms. She felt like staying there until they woke up in the morning. Arthur could see that, even if her dad had left her when she was young, she still cared about him. He leaned up against the wall, letting her weight rest against him. _

_But then, Arthur was suddenly gone and Ariadne's upper body fell into the floor. _

"_Arthur!" She yelled for him, but there was no answer. At first she was banging against the floor, but then she stood up and looked around. He was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, she felt like she was falling. She was tilting backwards. Her feet weren't touching the ground anymore and she was looking at the ceiling. _

Ariadne hit the floor with a thud. She opened her eyes and she was looking at the ceiling of the hotel and two large men she had never seen before. They grabbed her arms, pulling her off the ground with great force. It hurt Ariadne to be tugged on like that. They continued to hold on to her as another man unstrapped her wrist. She looked around him and saw Arthur being pulled to his feet by two other men. He had been tipped back in his chair. Ariadne realized the men had used the kick on both of them to wake them. 

Two men each were holding Eames, Yusuf, and Cobb. Saito wasn't in the room. In the middle of the room she saw the cab driver that had threatened them standing next to a man that was dressed in a nice suit and tie. His suit was much nicer than she had seen any of her teammates wear. Eames, Yusuf, and Cobb were standing on the side of the room with the balcony, while the men pulled Arthur and Ariadne to the other side, closer to the door.

"Just leave her alone!" Arthur yelled, struggling. One of the men swiftly pulled out a gun and cocked it, pressing it against Arthur's chest. Ariadne's heart jumped.

"We don't need to do this in a dream," the man dressed in a nice suit said, walking closer to Arthur and Ariadne. "If you yell out, we will shoot you. Trust me," the man smiled, "we'll still get away with it."

Arthur gave him an angry look that Ariadne had never seen before, even since Cobol's last visit.

"Weren't you supposed to come today and give us our next job?" Cobb asked from across the room.

The man turned to face him. "Yes," he said simply, "but when I found out about your extraordinary team, I had to see them for myself." He paused, his smile fading. "That and this idiot here," he looked at the cab driver, "didn't find out everything he was supposed to."

No one bothered to ask, since they already knew Cobol still wanted to know what they had been up to on their last mission.

"What have you been up to, Cobb?" He walked closer to Cobb, who looked almost as angry as Arthur. "What were you doing after you failed your mission with Saito?"

"Where is Saito?" Ariadne couldn't help but ask. Everyone turned her way.

"Saito left," the man said. "He is no importance to us at the moment, so we said he could leave."

"So after all that fuss about getting information from Saito," Cobb said, "you just let him go."

"Tell me what you have been up to, Cobb." He said, ignoring Cobb. "Or we will shoot the girl." One of the men holding Ariadne pulled out a gun and pressed it against her rib cage. Arthur was so scared now; scared for Ariadne's life. It was much more danger than ever.

Arthur was so scared for Ariadne's life that he answered before Cobb could even begin contemplating telling the truth. "Inception." He said in a low voice. Everyone looked at Arthur. Even Ariadne was shocked. Of course she didn't want to be shot, but she didn't need him telling them that quickly.

The man turned to face him, a shocked expression plastered across his face. "Inception?" He whispered. "How did you do it?"

"It's complicated." Cobb said.

"So you all know who to do it?" He said slowly, walking around to look at all of them. As he went around to each of them, they nodded slowly. "Even you?" He asked as he got to Ariadne. "The Architect?" He said slowly. Arthur had a look in his eye that wanted to kill. The man saw it. He looked at Arthur, to Ariadne, then back to Arthur. "What's this?" He smiled. "Let go of them," he said to the men holding their arms. They let go immediately, but watching them cautiously. The man put himself in between them, putting an arm around each of them. Ariadne was looking down at the floor, shaking. "Why so angry, Arthur?" He asked, taunting Arthur. "You haven't known her for that long, have you?"

Arthur didn't answer. He couldn't bring himself to. He had met her about a month ago, but he had grown attached to her in that little amount of time.

"So she's not so important to you?" He asked, already knowing otherwise.

Arthur clenched his teeth. "No." He said through his teeth. Ariadne's heart jumped. She knew Arthur cared about her because he was a caring guy, but she still felt a little let down.

"So it wouldn't matter to you if we, I don't know, took her away?"

"What?" Ariadne shrieked.

Arthur jumped, trying to go for Ariadne. Cobb began to struggle in the grasp from the men holding him. The two men grabbed a hold of Ariadne's arms again. The two men who had been holding Arthur down grabbed his arms and pressed him up against the wall, two guns pointed and pressed into his chest now.

Cobb stopped struggling as well. "Take her away where?" He asked, trying to be as calm as he could.

The man stood there, staring at Ariadne.

"Take her away where, _god dammit_?" Arthur said without struggling in the men's grasp.

"We know who you are, Ariadne." He said. Arthur's heart got caught in his throat. "You're a twenty-year-old graduate student who moved to France for Architecture College. About a month ago Cobb found you and asked you to help him with a job, is that correct?"

"Yes," she said after a moment of hesitating.

"So you speak French as a second language?"

"Yes," she said again, already knowing where this was going. She knew there was no point in lying: telling them that she also spoke French meant that they would take her to France. And if she tried to lie, he probably already knew she spoke French.

The man stared at her a little longer before speaking again. "We're going to take her to France. She is going to teach other Cobol agents how to incept others' minds. And maybe whatever else she knows." He said, smirking. "Is this your bag?" He said, pointing to a gray suitcase. Knowing they would only be in Las Angeles for a couple of days, she never bothered to unpack. Ariadne nodded. "Take her away," he said simply. One of the men grabbed her bag and they began pulling her out of the room. She began to struggle, but the men ignored her and proceeded.

"Wait, no!" Arthur began to struggle as well. "Ariadne!"

"Wait." The man said and everyone in the room stopped moving. "Let them say their goodbyes." The men instantly let go of Ariadne, but the men holding Arthur against the wall hesitated. As they let him go, they continued to point their guns at Arthur. "Block the door," he said and they obeyed.

Ariadne jumped into Arthur's arms. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, hugging up. His hands were pressed against her back, holding her against him. Even though she was on her tip toes, Arthur still had to lean over to hug Ariadne. His face was buried in her neck. He brought his lips to her ear. "Quick," he whispered in the same tone he had on their inception mission. "Give me a kiss."

Ariadne's heart did a back flip. She knew that this wasn't the time to do something like that, even if she wanted to, so she gave him a peck on the cheek as she pulled away from him. Arthur felt a little disappointed, but he too knew it wasn't the time for that. He stuck his hand in his left pants pocket, feeling around for a small object.

"What're you doing?" One of the men with guns said, pointing it directly at Arthur.

Arthur ignored him and kept his gaze on Ariadne, pulling out the red die. Ariadne stood there, not understanding what he meant. Arthur grabbed Ariadne's right hand and put the die in it, closing her hand around it. It was heavier than Ariadne expected it to be.

"You're totem?" She asked in a whisper. "I can't—"

"Just something to remember me by," he whispered back. He, Cobb, and Eames knew that they would probably never see her again. Ariadne, on the other hand, thought she would see them again, but not for a very long time.

Ariadne put the die in her left hand and used her right to feel around in her pocket. She pulled out the golden bishop and grabbed Arthur's right hand, putting chess piece in it. Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but Ariadne stopped him before he could.

"You can't say no when I just took your totem." She said and he sighed.

He gave her a sad smile and hugged her again, the same way as the first time. Ariadne never wanted the moment to end, but she knew it had to.

"Okay, okay," the man said impatiently, breaking up Arthur and Ariadne's hug. "Take her away." He commanded and the men grabbed her arms once again and pulled her out the door. No one bothered to struggle or protest that time. Arthur felt his heart sink as the door closed.

"Where are we going?" Ariadne asked.

"To France," one of the men said as they pulled her through the hallway.

"I mean, where right now?"

"To the airport."

Ariadne wondered how they would get a plane booked that fast, but she didn't bother to ask.

**AN: So I took a shot at making an Inception fan fiction. I wasn't planning on making it into separate chapters, but I really wanted to see what people thought of it so far. I'll probably make this a couple chapters longer, and then be done with it (maybe, depending on how much I feel like working on this). Sorry about any grammar errors or anything like that; I didn't feel like asking my friend to check **_**another **_**fan fiction for me. **


	2. Months Later

**I didn't expect to be uploading this, but even a year after I posted this story, people are still asking for more chapters or to at least find out what happens next. So, just to satisfy people a bit, I'm uploading a short second chapter. It's short, I'm sorry. My chapters aren't usually 12K words like the first chapter; they're usually 3K at the least, 5K at the most. But this chapter is just to tell you what was going on in Ariadne's life after Cobol took her away and so on, so it's about 2K words. This'll probably disappoint a lot of you because of the length, but I thought I should just upload it so people know what's going on, since I wanted to break the chapter after this anyways. **

Chapter Two

_Arthur felt a pull on his chair, tilting it back farther than it already was. He looked up, her brown hair brushing his cheek and forehead. Her big beautiful brown eyes stared into him as he tilted back in the chair. Only her hands were keeping him from falling backwards. She tilted him back even further so that her lips could reach his. _

_When their lips were but a centimeter apart, she dropped him. _

Arthur flew forward out of bed, breathing heavily. He put his hand on his forehead in frustration and noticed he was sweating. He got up and hurried to the bathroom. He turned the 'cold' knob on the sink and splashed the water on his face. He looked into the mirror, his face dripping wet. He turned off the sink and wiped his face, still looking at himself in the mirror. He was shaking and his heart was beating fast.

He needed to stop dreaming about her.

Ariadne woke up late. She had to be at Cobol's office (they had an office at almost every capitol in almost every country) at six in the morning. It was five thirty; she forgot to set the alarm clock last night. She rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom, splashing water on her face. She wiped it off, almost fully awake now.

She knew Cobol was planning to send her somewhere today; they kept her within France most of the time, but sometimes they sent her to the neighboring countries. When she first started working with Cobol, she taught a group of agents how to incept someone's mind—it wasn't that easy to explain. After about a month of that, they gave her a couple more teammates and they've been given missions for the next four months.

So it had been almost five months since she had seen her _real _team: Cobb, Eames, Saito, Yusuf, _Arthur_—it would be five months tomorrow. Arthur's name nagged her all the time. She thought about him, dreamt about him. She was extremely careful with Arthur's totem—he would hate her forever if anything happened to that die.

She picked out a black blazer and a matching skirt—her boss asked her to always look her best when going into the office. Outside the office, he didn't give a damn what she wore. She picked out a nice white blouse, tucked it into the skirt and pulled on the blazer, buttoning the single button. She wore something similar to that almost every visit to the office. She went into the bathroom and threw on some mascara, lip stick and blush. She had planned on straightening her hair, but she woke up too late. She pulled it up into a neat bun.

Ariadne went into the living room and slipped on her knee-high, high heel boots. She grabbed an apple on her way out. When she arrived in France, Cobol took away her cell phone and gave her a new one. She hadn't memorized any of her teammates' numbers, so the only numbers in her new phone were her new teammates and Cobol's office. They also gave her a car and an apartment since she wasn't anywhere near where she lived prior to being taken away by Cobol.

She pulled out her remote control and the car unlocked with a beep. She made her way to the office, expecting to be back to her apartment within a couple of hours to pack for her unknown trip. She was usually sent on missions that lasted two or three days, depending on how long the planning took. Not usually too long. Her new teammates consisted of a Belgian man named Luc and an elderly Cuban man named Castel. Luc was twenty-five years old, a few shades tanner than Ariadne, had black hair, fairly muscular… He was good looking, according to Ariadne, but she wasn't interested in him, like he was in her. Luc often asked to take Ariadne out to eat something after one of their missions, but of course she declined, always saying the same thing: I'm interested in someone else. Luc was the extractor of the group, Ariadne was (of course) the architect, and Castel was the point man. Castel was nice and always made sure of their safety, but whenever Ariadne thought of the words 'point man', she thought of Arthur.

She pulled to a stop at a red light. Her eyes wandered around the road and saw black, slicked back hair standing on the sidewalk. Her heart jumped and she turned her full face in his general direction. She was about ready to jump out of the car and run towards him when she blinked, and Arthur was gone.

She was seeing them again. She had been seeing her teammates' (mostly Cobb and Arthur's) faces. It happened more frequently as time went on. Ariadne slammed her head on the steering wheel. She jumped back when the car honked. She reached for her handbag and picked out the red die, tossing it against a seat. It rolled a two.

When she dreamt lucidly, she was able pull to the red die out of her pocket. But she noticed that, the few times she had dreamt non-lucidly, she would pick her golden bishop out of her pocket instead, not being completely used to the feel of having the die. She found it a little weird that she would dream of her bishop instead of the die when she only had the bishop for a month, and she had the red die for the past five months. But she knew it was because she made the bishop personally for herself, like Arthur made the die personally for himself, Eames made the poker chip personally for himself, and Mal made the top personally for herself.

Walking into the large office, she saw people sitting around the coffee table on couches drinking coffee as always. They most of the people in the entire building were men. Ariadne didn't understand why an equal amount of women weren't hired for these jobs. They stared at the young college student. She ignored them; they always did when she walked into the office.

Ariadne took the elevator up to her boss' floor and walked into the office while her heels made a _clop _sound. The one of the walls was made up entirely of transparent glass so you could see the city. The office was neat, refined, modern, and _large_. As she walked into the office, she saw her two partners standing around the shiny black table, waiting for her. Her boss was reading a newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee—which reminded her: she really wanted some.

When Ariadne realized that he wouldn't notice her if she didn't do anything, she closed the door abnormally loudly. His eyes flew up to meet hers and he put his paper down.

"Ariadne." He said, smiling. She hated the way he said her name. She hated anybody this high up in Cobol. "You're a tad late."

"I know." She said in a soft voice.

His face suddenly turned serious, and he stood up from his desk. "You three need your new assignment. You three will be traveling to Tours for the next two or three days." He took a folder off of his desk and handed it to Castel who immediately opened it and began reading. "It contains your tickets, the description of the man you'll be extracting, what you're extracting, everything."

Ariadne took a step closer to Castel and looked over his arm so she could read as well. The first things she noticed were the plane tickets. The plane would leave in about four and a half hours. Not much more explaining was done by their boss before they had to leave to pack and get to the airport. Ariadne drove herself to a nearby Starbucks and got a latte.

Ariadne immediately changed into more comfortable clothes—jeans, a blouse, bandana scarf, jacket—but put two sets of business attire into the suitcase for when they were extracting. She pulled her hair out of the bun as well. She made sure to put the red dye in her pocket.

While waiting to board the plane, Castel was doing more research on the guy they were going to obtain information from and took notes vigorously, while Ariadne sketched out a new maze and Luc had gone to get something to eat. Ariadne wanted to do the same.

She put her sketch pad into her bag. "I'm going to the food court," she told Castel, who replied with a mere "Okay."

When she got to the food court, she decided that Subway then frozen yogurt sounded like a satisfying meal. As she headed over to the Subway line, Ariadne felt a hand grab her right shoulder and swing her around. It was so sudden she almost screamed. But she forced it down her throat when she saw his face.

"Cobb!" She swung her arms around his neck. His hands tightened around her back. She felt so excited she would hyperventilate. "What are you doing here?" She asked in hysterics as when she finally let go of him.

"I heard you were here—In Paris." He said. He was just excited to see Ariadne as she was to see him; he just wasn't a man to show his emotions. "I thought I'd come look for you since Cobol gave me a few days off. I didn't think I'd find you this quickly. Where are you going?"

"I'm supposed to be going to Tours for a mission." She explained.

"No," Cobb said. "You're not going to Tours." He handed her a fat envelope with some lumps in it. "I know where Arthur is."

Ariadne's gaze shot back up to meet Cobb's. "_Where_?"

"England."

She couldn't believe how close they had stationed him to her. She was expecting him to be in the Philippines or New Zealand or something. She opened the envelope. There was a cell phone, enough Euros for a one-way plane ticket, and fifteen thousand pounds. Ariadne's jaw dropped. "This is a lot of money. And what if Cobol finds me?"

"Cobol won't be traveling by train. And trains don't cost that much. And they won't know you in England."

Ariadne began to understand what he was saying. She would practically live on the trains, hiding from Cobol. She looked at the plane ticket; she had a few hours before it left.

"I shouldn't activate the phone," he said. He handed Ariadne a slip of paper with a number on it. "Here's my number; call me when you're alone and safe. Don't put my name in it though."

She felt so happy inside. She was that much closer to finding Arthur. But Cobb was making it sound like Cobol _would _find her. Going out in the world by herself, she felt like she had no sense of security.

"One of the workers told me that he heard Arthur was more inland."

Ariadne almost squealed she was so happy. She jumped up and hugged Cobb again. "Thank you—thanks so much, Cobb! You have no idea what this means to me…"

She heard someone say her name. "Ariadne…" But it wasn't Cobb's. Five feet behind Cobb was Luc, looking at her. She let go of Cobb, who turned around to face the tan male. "Who's this?"

Her heart began to pound. "…This is Cobb. He's an old friend of mine." Ariadne said. "Cobb, this is Luc, one of my teammates."

Cobb looked at Ariadne, then back at Luc. They each gave one another a polite smile and shook hands.

"What're you holding?" Luc asked Ariadne, looking at the objects in her hand.

"Hey! So…" Cobb turned Luc to face him more while Ariadne began to inch away from the men. "You extract information right? That means you go into people's dreams, right?"

By that point, Ariadne was running as quietly and fast as she could, not sure whether or not Luc had noticed she was gone. When she was a good ways away from the food court, she looked back and saw Cobb holding Luc back. She ran to where Castel was, wanting one last thing before she left.

As she got close to Castel, he still didn't notice her presence. She slowly inched her hand toward the silver briefcase, toward its handle. Amazingly, she had gotten as far as contact with the handle before he noticed her, but when the object was grasped in her palm, he saw Ariadne's hand and looked up at her. He looked confused at her. "What—?"

Ariadne ran before he could ask her what she was doing. She just ran toward the front of the airport. She passed by Cobb and Luc—they both saw her. A security team was holding them both down.

She had to drive herself to a different airport if she wanted to get to England as quickly as possible. She wanted to find Arthur—she wanted to find all her teammates, but Arthur was her first priority.


	3. Run Fast

Chapter 3: Run Fast

_Arthur was standing behind a bar, waiting for their target—Mr. Kirk—to arrive. There were no lights inside the room except for the dimly lit ones over the tables and above the bar table. Arthur dress in his usual business attire—button up dress shirt, vest, tie, dress pants, and slicked back hair, just no blazer. Jesse—the extractor for their team—was sitting in a far corner of the hotel's bar by herself at a table, drinking and eyeing Arthur. Jesse was short, barely hitting five feet, with big green eyes, fair skin, and short, curly brown hair. She was wearing a black fitted lace dress and black stilettos to impress the target. Justin—the architect—was in the lobby playing as the manager, persuading Mr. Kirk to visit the bar. _

_After watching Mr. Kirk, Arthur had come to the conclusion that he visited the bar every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday at the hotels he travelled to for business. It was all supposed to be played out to seem as real as possible._

_Arthur touched the chess piece in his pocket. He couldn't forget her. _

_Jesse took another sip of her drink, eyeing Arthur once again. As Arthur served a drink to another customer, their target walked in. Jesse noticed just as quickly as Arthur. She put her drink down, sat up straight, readying herself for Arthur's signal to come over. _

_Mr. Kirk sat down at the bar stool, pinching the bridge of his nose, looking exhausted. _

"_What can I get you, sir?" Arthur asked him. _

_Mr. Kirk looked up at him. "An Amaretto Sour," he said, and went back to pinching the bridge of his nose. Arthur had already known what he was going to order; Arthur had seen him order it four times when he followed Mr. Kirk to the bar one Saturday. Arthur had learned the recipe as well. _

_Arthur shook the drink—the signal for Jesse to come over. She took one last sip of her drink before making her way over to the bar and sitting on the stool. _

"_I'll have what he's having," she said. She put her hands together under her chin. _

"_Of course, ma'am." Arthur replied, smiling casually at Jesse. He turned around to make the drink. Jesse and Mr. Kirk's conversation began playing out just as planned. He served Jesse the drink right as Kirk took a sip of his own. _

_Arthur began talking to another random customer about his day, but he was really only listening to what Kirk and Jesse were saying. _

_After about four more minutes of letting the conversation play out, Arthur turned his attention back towards Jesse and Kirk, but didn't say anything to them. He noticed that Jesse had already finished two-thirds of her drink, while barely a fifth of Kirk's was gone. _

"_So," Jesse said a low, soft voice. "Do you have a room here?" She took a sip of her drink and raised her eyebrows, never taking her gaze off of Kirk. Arthur could feel the uncomfortable but most important part of the conversation coming on. _

"_Um," he looked uncomfortable himself, but was smirking. "I'm here on a business trip." _

_Jesse didn't make any sort of reaction to the statement. _

"_And I just ordered this drink…" He was obviously very turned on by Jesse, but for some reason continued to make excuses. _

"_You can take it to your room," Arthur chimed in. Kirk looked at Arthur, then back to Jesse, but Jesse kept her seductive gaze on Kirk the entire time. _

"_I, uh…" Kirk mumbled. Arthur raised his eyebrows at him, as if to say "just go". "Let's go." _

_Jesse and Kirk got up from the table at the same time. She took the glass and tossed back the rest of the drink. Kirk took his glass they began walking towards the exit together. _

_Arthur was to follow them approximately fifteen seconds after they left the room. He counted, leaning over the bar and staring at the floor. When he got to eleven, he noticed two feet, each wearing a black stiletto, connecting to long legs. Arthur's eyes travelled up the pair of legs, up to a fitted, strapless black dress. In it, he saw _her_, with her big, beautiful, brown eyes and long brunette hair that curled at the ends. She was wearing black smoky eye shadow and was holding a drink with cherries floating on the top. _

_Arthur's breath caught in his throat. He felt around in his pocket for the golden bishop—not to make sure it was real, because he knew he was in a dream, but merely out of instinct. _

_She just stood there, in the back of the bar, in the darkness of the room, behind the crowd, watching Arthur. She was standing there, as if she was waiting for Arthur to do something. _

_Arthur, not knowing that he had already wasted _minutes _of the mission, jumped over the bar's table and weaved through the crowd, making his way over to her. _

"_Ariadne," his whispered. He stood in front of her for a moment, not doing anything. Ariadne put her drink down on the table next to her. In one swift movement, Arthur took her face in his hands. "Ariadne," he whispered again. _

_Had he finally found her? Had she found him? _

_She couldn't have found him. It wasn't possible. _

_But she was there. Her face was in Arthur's hands, inches away from his nose. Her lips were parted, and he could feel her breath on his skin. He felt her breath quicken, as well as his own. He pressed his forehead against hers with eyes squeezed shut and whispered her name a third time in shaky breath, as if he were about crying. He pressed his lips against hers, pulled away, then kissed her again as her lips did the same. _

_It felt so real to Arthur. _

_Ariadne stood but ten feet away from Arthur. Their clothes were messy and their lungs out of breath. They were in the middle of the hideout they used to plan in the inception mission. They were both staring at a gun that sat in between them. They looked at each other before lunging for the gun. _

_Ariadne's hand was on top of the gun, but Arthur's was around the side, about to click the trigger, putting a hole into Ariadne's stomach. _

Her eyes flew open. She hadn't been dreaming lucidly. She hadn't been lately. She had been having nightmares about Arthur. She was afraid that he wasn't looking for her—that he had sincerely joined Cobol in everything that had happened. She was also having dreams about Cobol agents finding her, but for some reason, they didn't scare her as much.

Her hands shook and her breath felt heavy. Her cheek felt sore; her face had slid down the window of the train compartment she was sitting in. She rubbed her eyes; they were about to pull into a station. She felt around in her pocket, touching the red die. Ariadne would spend the next day or two wandering around the city, looking for Arthur. She had been searching for almost two months now; it felt like it would be impossible to find him. At times it even felt like Arthur was hiding from her.

It pained her to think about it that way.

As the train lurched to a stop, Ariadne got up from the seat, grabbed her luggage, and left the apartment. As she headed towards the exit of the train, she heard a couple of women behind her whispering. She tucked her hair behind her ear to hear better.

"Isn't that the girl that basically _lives_ on the trains?" One of the women said in a thick Cockney accent.

"I think so," the other replied. "It's a bit odd, don't you think."

Ariadne turned back to look at them, making them jump a bit. They had no idea why she was on the trains so much; they shouldn't be judging her. But Ariadne didn't say anything. She simply exited the train.

She took a cab down a couple miles south to find a hostile. She checked in, put her stuff down in the room, and went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and realized what an ungodly mess her hair was. She brushed a comb through it, helping it a bit, and got on a bus. She tried not to fall asleep on the bus. Ariadne hadn't gotten much sleep on the train the night before; she was scared to have more nightmares. She carefully scanned around the town until she came to the more populous city where Cobol might be.

Cobol never labeled their buildings, just to keep themselves more 'low key'. If Cobb and Arthur knew she was walking around Cobol buildings aimlessly, she would probably throw a fit.

Ariadne stopped suddenly, yawned and rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling a bit hungry. She went to the nearest café and grabbed a sandwich. She sat down on a bench and pulled a drawing notebook. She liked to design and build when she wanted to clear her mind. She opened the notebook up to previous sketches, reviewing them. She was in the process of creating a human game board, but looking realistic. It was designed on a street, with buildings like cathedrals and schools and cafés and office buildings. But it was to be a game when finished, when she could figure out the strategies.

She took a few bites of her sandwich and began to space out for a second, absentmindedly grabbing her notebook. She only stopped when she could've sworn she saw a tall man with slicked back hair in a suit carrying a silver briefcase disappear around the corner of a building. At first Ariadne thought she was just hallucinating from the exhaustion, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind, telling her that it was real. And she would never know if it really was him if she didn't go look.

Notebook in hand, she jumped up from the bench and ran through the stopped traffic towards the other side of the street, where she thought she had seen Arthur. She stood at the corner, turning around in circles, scanning over the crowds. She stopped and rubbed her eyes. She felt as if she was going to go insane, and she wanted to cry.

She looked back to the bench with her abandoned sandwich. There were two men standing in front of it, wearing nice suits, staring at her. Ariadne could tell they were observing her intently, slowly walking closer to her.

Ariadne could see it, even from across the street. Their eyes widened in almost the exact same instant. They knew it was her. They had found her. They went for her, dodging a car as they went across the street.

Ariadne's heart thumped in her chest as she turned to get away. She began running down the block as fast as she could, but they were gaining on her. She threw her notebook into her bag and ran into a coffee shop. She hoped that they wouldn't follow her in, but subconsciously she knew that they would, and they did. She picked up a chair and swung her whole body around to hit one of the men with it. A woman in the shop shrieked. He hit the floor, but he hadn't been knocked out.

Ariadne reached a street with apartment buildings. She was on the backside of them. The two men were trailing about fifteen feet behind her now when she saw the fire escapes. She looked back at the two men and realized she wouldn't be able to run like this forever.

She jumped right up onto one and climbed up the stairs, not at all quietly. She looked back; they were gaining on her again. Ariadne might as well have thought it was a dream. Not sure if she could even make the jump, she leapt over to the next set of stairs, only able to grab the bars from her hands. Hanging from the fire escape, she looked back again; they stood at the edge of the fire escape she had jumped from, staring at her. Ariadne pulled herself up and began to run up more stairs again. She was about twenty feet above them when they fire escape ended, and the next one wasn't anywhere in jumping range.

Ariadne looked up and saw flower beds extending from the open windows above her. She had no choice. She jumped up and grabbed the edge of the windowsill. As she hung from it, she looked down and saw one of the men pulling out a gun and aiming it at her. Ariadne began to panic, knowing she was done for, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She hung there for another moment before opening her eyes, seeing that the gun wouldn't shoot.

"Does it have bullets—!" One of the men shouted.

"Of course it has bullets!" The one with the gun shouted back.

It must've been jammed, Ariadne thought. She had to use all her upper-body strength to push herself up and through the open window. She extended her arms in front of her and landed on her side with a thump. She opened her eyes and immediately saw a pair of short, skinny legs in skinny jeans and a t-shirt. She had short, curly brown and big, olive-green eyes. She was staring down at Ariadne, extremely confused.

Ariadne immediately jumped up, faulting to look in the girls eyes, and began to move past her. "I'm sorry—" Ariadne began.

The girl grabbed Ariadne by the arm and stopped her, turning to face her. "Uh uh," she said, staring intently at Ariadne. "You don't just jump through my window and run away. Who are you?"

But before Ariadne could answer, another man ran into the room.

"What was that?" He said. He had dirty blonde hair that was spiked up and a bit untidy. He stared at Ariadne. "Who's this?"

There was a _clunk _outside the window. The one of the guys following Ariadne had made the jump between the two fire escapes.

"I'm sorry—" Ariadne croaked, panicking. "I really have to go—!"

She tried to get away, but the girl stopped her again. "We're in the middle of a mission." She said, her eyes still fixed on Ariadne. "You can't just—"

"Are you with Cobol?" Ariadne suddenly cut her off. The girl's eyes widened in complete shock.

Ariadne knew she was right, and she felt like she had to run, that they would only hold her back to be killed or captured. The girl looked as if she were going to ask who Ariadne was and how she knew about Cobol, but they both knew they was no time.

"Justin," she suddenly said to the man, "hide her!" She pushed Ariadne towards Justin.

"Where—!" He couldn't even finish the word before the girl cut him off.

"_Anywhere!_" She snapped at him. Ariadne was confused as to why she was even doing this for her. Justin dragged her out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He looked around the hallway to where he could hide her. They heard a _thunk_ from the bedroom they were just in. Justin quickly pulled her further down the hallway, past another bedroom. Ariadne could see a figure sleeping on its bed.

He pulled her out through a door to an elevator room. Ariadne could see the controls and that it needed a key to work. She didn't understand why they had it or where it even went, but she didn't have time to ask. Justin unlocked the door. "Get in," He ordered. "I'm going to shut it down until Jesse tells me it's okay." He said as Ariadne got until the elevator. She assumed Jesse was the girl in the bedroom.

The doors closed but the elevator didn't move. Ariadne stood for a moment, then the lights shut off, making her jump. She backed up against the side wall, trying to steady herself. She was trembling and had no idea what was going on. Jesse and Justin didn't seem to know who Ariadne was, but they were from Cobol. And they were helping her, though Ariadne wasn't sure _they_ even knew what was going on.

She stood in the elevator, almost motionless, for awhile until she heard footsteps running around outside. Ariadne's heart jumped, but she tried her best to stay still. Her body began to tremble again. She heard the footsteps begin to fade away and calmed down a bit, sliding to the floor in relief when she couldn't hear the men anymore.

After a few moments of waiting, the elevator lights turned back on and the doors opened, Jesse's disgruntled face staring down at her. Justin stood behind her, simply staring at Ariadne. Jesse held out a bottle of water to her.

"T-thanks," Ariadne stammered, taking the bottle of water.

"Why were you running from Cobol agents?" She asked.

"Oh, um—" But before Ariadne could even begin to explain, she felt dizzy and passed out on the elevator's floor, dropping the bottle of water.

"Jesse, what—?" Justin stared down at the motionless Ariadne.

"She's the girl Arthur's been dreaming of," she explained simply, staring fixedly at Ariadne as well.

Justin stared at her in disbelief. "The same girl that Cobol's looking for?"

"We should put her into the bedroom," Jesse said suddenly. "She's going to be asleep for awhile."

Justin looked at Jesse for a moment, down at Ariadne, then went to pick her up. Scooping her up, he took her back into the bedroom that she had jumped into and laid her down on the bed, closing the door when he left.

_Arthur laid on a bed in the hotel room in his dream, staring into Ariadne's eyes. She was staring right back into his, smiling. Arthur was fingering strands of her hair. Sheets were covering their bare chests. Arthur wasn't sure how to explain the happiness he felt. She was here with him—they were together now. _

Arthur's eyes slid open. He knew that he was dreaming, but he didn't expect to be the only one in the room. He wasn't even hooked up to the PASIV device anymore. He thought someone else—Ariadne—would be as well. He expected her to be laying _somewhere_ in the room.

But she wasn't.

"_No_," Arthur whispered to himself. He couldn't believe it—she hadn't been real. She was just a projection. For a good while he thought he had finally found her, and now that belief had just been shattered. He felt like screaming and crying. He sat up on the edge of the bed, looking calm for a second before grabbing a pillow and throwing it against the wall as hard as he could. A deep noise erupted from the bowels of his throat and he cursed.

Then he stood in the middle of the apartment room, finally calming down.

Then he remembered what had happened before he brought Ariadne up to the hotel room. He had abandoned Jesse and Justin in the middle of a mission. Kirk should've been in the room with him as well. Arthur wondered how long he had been asleep as Jesse and Justin came through the door.

"Arthur," Justin began, "you're awake—"

"_What the hell happened to you!_" Jesse exploded. "We were in the middle of a _mission!_ You were supposed to follow us out!"

"I know," Arthur said calmly. "I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry!_" She hissed. "The whole mission could've fallen because of you!"

"I'm sorry." He said, not looking her in the eye. "What happened?"

"We carried on the mission, _without _you." She spat at him. "We got the information, and now Kirk's gone." She explained, crossing her arms. "I'm tired; I'm going to sleep for a bit."

Justin and Arthur each raised an eyebrow at her as she left the room. She lightly ran down the hall and grabbed the PASIV device. She tiptoed back to the hall and to the other bedroom, hooking Ariadne up, then herself. She laid down next to her on the bed and drifted off into sleep.

_Ariadne stood on the side of a building, on the balcony, in a place she only recognized as Cobb's limbo. She had been sedated. She wasn't completely sure on how heavy the sedation was—if she jumped over the edge, whether she would wake up or not, so she tried it. She turned her back towards the open air and leaned over the edge, falling. _

_It didn't work. She was still awake. Ariadne began to panic, thinking that when she fell and hit the ground, she would die hitting the ground with such impact and fall into limbo. But when she hit the ground, it felt like water, and she simply sunk into it. _

_She surfaced the water, taking in a deep breath. She swam over to a balcony, realizing that it seemed Cobb's limbo world had been flooded. She grabbed a railing and pulled herself up, entering the apartment room. She had nothing to do—she was going to be under for however long Jesse's sedative lasted. She took the elevator to the top floor. _

_Ariadne was scared—she was afraid of what Jesse was planning on doing to or with her as she slept. Whatever she did to Ariadne in the real world would only have more effect in the dream world. _

_Ariadne's legs almost turned to Jell-O when she exited the elevator and saw the room. It was hotel room 428—the hotel room Ariadne and Arthur were together in during the inception mission. She felt a bit like crying, though she didn't understand why her subconscious chose _that_ certain setting for the top floor of all things. _

_She jumped when she heard the elevator door open behind her. Ariadne turned around and saw Jesse step onto the floor, holding a gun. Ariadne began to tremble. If she killed her now, she would drop into limbo, and Ariadne had no means of protection at the moment. _

_Ariadne found what Jesse was wearing a bit odd—a woman's business suit, all black, but subtle sparkles, and boots with heels on the ends. She wondered why she would've wanted to be dressed that way at a time like this. _

"_This is an interesting place," Jesse said, looking around and stepping a bit closer to Ariadne, who backed up. "Is this your own subconscious?" She asked, looking at Ariadne. She shook her head, telling Jesse 'no'. It wasn't completely true: this room was, but Ariadne was completely clueless as to why it was here. Jesse's expression suddenly turned much more serious. "I know who you are, Ariadne." She stepped closer, and the other backed up again. "You're the girl Arthur's been dreaming of; the girl that Cobol's been looking for." _

_Ariadne's heart jumped. Arthur had been dreaming of her; _she_ had showed up in Arthur's dreams. But this girl, who was part of Cobol, knew exactly who she was. _

_The only way for Ariadne to escape was the window behind her, but even if she jumped from it, there was nowhere for her to go. _

I'm the architect, _Ariadne thought. She could do whatever she wanted to the world she was currently in; it was her dream. _

_She turned to the window, whose glass immediately shattered as she did. She grabbed the edge of the window and heard the gun fire, but didn't feel any bit of pain. _

"_Why are you trying to shoot me!" Ariadne shouted at Jesse, who didn't answer. Ariadne looked out the window and saw a rope hanging next to her from the roof. She grabbed it and slowly began to slide down the side of the building. Jesse looked down from the window, put the gun into her boot, and jumped out after Ariadne, grabbing the rope as well. Ariadne only had to think about it for a second and the rope broke between the two girls. Ariadne put one hand above her head, used the other to plug her nose, and straightened her legs. She made a clean pencil dive, hitting the ground that—again—dissolved into water. _

_When she surfaced, she looked back up at Jesse, who was stilling hanging from the rope, pointing the gun at Ariadne. She fixed her eyes on Jesse for a moment when the water began to rise in a gigantic, rapid wave with Ariadne at its top, raising her up to the other girl. _

_The waves engulfed Jesse as they rose up to her and disappeared as Ariadne was able to grab onto the top edge of the building. She looked down at the other girl who was falling. A bridge between two buildings began forming under Jesse, causing her to slam on top of it. Ariadne let go of the edge of the building and a parachute appeared from her back, letting her float down to the bridge. _

_Jesse, still lying on the concrete structure, aimed her gun at Ariadne and shot. She missed, but put holes into the parachute. It disconnected itself from Ariadne's back—by her command—and floated away, dropping the girl. She would've missed the bridge, but the structure suddenly shifted itself over a few feet and she unpleasantly hit the concrete. _

_Ariadne stared at Jesse's gun and it exploded, its previous holder jumping back a few feet in shock. She stood there, stunned for a moment, then lunged for Ariadne. She clasped her neck in her hands as Ariadne grabbed the collar of Jesse's blazer. Jesse was trying to push Ariadne to the ground as she tried pulling and pushing Jesse over the edge of the bridge, but it wasn't working. _

_When they had completely switched places in the process, Jesse pulled out a knife. Ariadne pushed off of Jesse as hard as she could and the bridge shifted to a forty-five degree angle, causing Ariadne to slide backwards, Jesse skimming down after her. Ariadne didn't understand how it worked, but it did. _

_From every direction, every material came together in front of Ariadne and formed a gun. She grabbed it and immediately began shooting at Jesse, barely missing every shot. The bridge collapsed from under Jesse, but it continued to collapse near Ariadne. Both girls ended up falling onto what now was concrete rather than water. They got onto their knees, completely out of breath, and stared at each other before lunging again. Jesse knocked the gun right out of Ariadne's hand and brought the knife towards her face. Ariadne had to clasp her palm around the sharp edges of the knife to stop it, immediately causing her hand to bleed. _

"How can she be tired," Arthur asked no one in particular, though Justin was still in the room with him. "We were just asleep."

"None of us were sleeping for very long, Arthur." Justin explained. Arthur looked at the blonde as if to say 'oh, yeah'. He was still pretty shaken up from what just happened. He had to forget about her. He tried to push her away from his mind and to think about work, though he was touching the golden bishop in his pocket.

"So," Arthur turned towards Justin, "how do we reach Kirk's employer, then?"

"Oh," Justin stuck his hands into his pockets. "I'm not sure; Jesse wrote it down, but I'm not sure where." He explained.

"Hm." Arthur stared off. "I should ask her, just so that we can continue working."

Arthur was already heading into the other room before Justin could stop him, but he wasn't even sure if he _wanted _to stop him, or even if he should've. He was only afraid of how Arthur was going to react. Justin hesitantly reached for Arthur as he began to open the door, but ended up backing off.

Arthur stood there, motionless, not being able to believe what he was seeing. "Ariadne," he whispered her name, wondering if he was hallucinating or perhaps even dreaming. He took the golden bishop out of his pocket and set it down on the dresser, knocking it over.

He was awake—this was real. Ariadne was really in front of him this time.

But she was hooked up to the PASIV device with Jesse. Arthur suddenly felt terrified of what Jesse might be doing to her.

"_Ariadne!" _Arthur cried, lunging for Ariadne, but Justin held him back. He felt like breaking down. Ariadne was in front of him, sleeping, as Jesse could've been inside her mind, _torturing_ her. Arthur struggled in Justin's arms until he elbowed the blonde's nose, letting him free. He ran towards Ariadne and began to shake her violently. "Ariadne!" He yelled again in an attempt to wake her, but nothing was happening.

"Arthur!" Justin dragged Arthur back by his jacket. "She won't wake up; she's under a sedative."

Arthur didn't hesitate to grab Justin by his t-shirt and shove him up against the wall. "_What did you do to her?" _Arthur hissed through his teeth.

"Jesse gave her a sedative!" He croaked. "She's been asleep for several hours already; she shouldn't be under much longer."

Arthur loosened his grip on the blonde's shirt and took one long, last look at Ariadne.

_Ariadne was still struggling to improvise. All the windows in the building behind them exploded, and the broken glass began flying towards the two girls. Jesse let go of the knife, leaving it in Ariadne's palm, and covered herself, dropping to the ground. Ariadne held the handle of the knife in her right hand as Jesse got up on her knees, but stumbled back. Ariadne threw the knife, missing. It was close enough to cut through Jesse's short hair as it hit the ground, but it left Jesse herself unharmed. She only lied there, stunned. _

_As Jesse began to jump back up, a chain popped out of the ground and tied itself around her wrist, holding her down. Ariadne jumped back a foot before going for her gun. She hesitated for a second before shooting Jesse, wondering if she had taken a sedative before going under, but decided it didn't matter as she put a hole in the other girl's chest._

_Ariadne took in a deep breath and dropped to her knees from all the commotion, instantly regretting it as the broken glass cut open her hands and knees as well as get caught in the gash in her palm. _

"_Ariadne." She heard a voice and distant footsteps on the broken glass. She looked up, eyes widened in shock, and she only had one thought, one impulse. _

_She jumped to her feet, grabbing the gun, and pointed it at him as he walked over to her. He held his hands up in defense. The glass on the ground began to rattle, then flew back towards the building, reforming the windows. They both had to cover their faces to keep from getting glass in their eyes. _

_When the flying shards cleared, he began walking towards her again, hands above his head. "Ariadne," he said again. "It's me. Arthur—"_

"_You're not real!" She cried, the gun aimed at him. "You're just a projection!" She was trembling. She could only think that he wasn't really there, like in all her other dreams. She couldn't have possibly found him when not searching; she had been looking for him everywhere. He was either a projection or some trick of Jesse's, she thought. _

_Arthur stopped five feet in front of Ariadne. "Ariadne," he said calmly, "I'm real. I'm really here." She didn't move. She continued to hold the gun in her shaky hands, pointed at him. The only thing she could think about was being killed and falling into limbo; she was terrified of it. _

_Arthur slowly dropped his right hand into his pocket, making Ariadne flinch. He pulled out her golden bishop and opened his palm to show her. That was when she lowered the gun, staring at it in disbelief. _

_He had once told her that you could simply look at your totem to tell if someone was messing with your dream. It looked as if her totem was right there, in Arthur's palm, but she was afraid to step close to him. If it was really her totem, the exact weight and all, Arthur was real. He was the only other person that knew the balance of her bishop. _

_She slowly took steps towards Arthur, who didn't move. The only sound was the light wind in her ears. She reached her hand out and touched it. She didn't even have to fully pick it up to realize it was hers. Everything about it felt familiar—the texture, the weight, the way it fell back into Arthur's palm. Ariadne looked up at him, feeling as if she were about to start sobbing. _

"_Arthur!" She cried, throwing her arms around his waist. She buried her face into his chest as he put his arms around her, pulling her closer. _

"_I finally found you," he whispered into her hair. He missed her hair, her scent, her short height—he missed everything about her. He brought his lips up to kiss her forehead. They stood there for a moment, holding each other, until Ariadne pulled away a bit to look up at him. They both laughed and she threw her arms around his neck, jumping back into his arms. _

_They began to walk together, talking about what had happened in the past months they had been apart. Neither one of them was sure what was going to happen when they woke up, so this was their only time to talk. Sometime along the way, Arthur grabbed Ariadne's hand and intertwined their fingers. They were both so happy to see each other. _

_They walked until they came to a cliff. They couldn't see the bottom of it; it was covered in fog. _

"_Justin said that the sedative Jesse gave you shouldn't last much longer." Arthur explained, looking over the edge of the cliff. "We've been walking for hours, so I would guess now is the time." He said, taking a step forward. "I'll go first to hold off anybody who might be waiting for us." _

"_What if it's not time yet?" She asked, squeezing Arthur's hand. _

"_You'll be fine." He looked at Ariadne and gave her a small smile before letting go of her hand. She hated the way it felt—his hand leaving hers. She wanted to stay in the dream for as long as possible, until time ran out. Arthur turned towards her and leaned back, falling over the edge of the cliff. Ariadne couldn't tell if he had left the dream or had just disappeared in the fog. _

_Ariadne waited quite a few moments before jumping over the cliff. She was scared of waking up. She had killed Jesse—she should be waiting on the other side for Ariadne. But she took a deep breath and did what Arthur told her to do, jumping over the side. _

_She felt that dropping feeling she disliked in her stomach as she fell backwards into the fog. _

Ariadne's eyes flew open and her chest heaved for air. Almost immediately she was dragged off the bed. She could barely tell what was going on; she had just woken up from several hours of sleeping. She saw Arthur being held back by Justin near the window. Arthur looked as if he were going to kill someone.

Ariadne realized it was no longer day time. There was a lamp in the corner of the room providing light, but other than that, it was hard to see people's faces.

Jesse was dragging Ariadne out of the room by her shirt. When they reached the doorway, Ariadne used her hands and feet to stop herself, grasping the doorframe. Arthur was struggling to get away from Justin, but the blonde was much larger than him, and he didn't get any closer to Ariadne but a few inches. Justin put his arm around Arthur's throat.

"_No—!_" Arthur choked.

Jesse used all the force and strength in her arms to yank Ariadne away from the doorframe, thrusting her onto the floor. Ariadne propped herself up by her elbows when Jesse suddenly pulled a gun on her. Ariadne and Arthur both froze.

"Give me one reason not to kill you." She said darkly.

Even Justin, who was still holding Arthur but didn't struggle to keep a grasp on him, was shocked. Even _he_ didn't understand what Jesse was doing. Ariadne, breathing heavily on the floor, stared up at Jesse in disbelief.

"You said you've never _actually_ killed somebody," Arthur said suddenly. "Why start now?"

"Why should I let you go?" She hissed, turning towards Arthur, but keeping the gun pointed at Ariadne.

Ariadne knew it was stupid to try, but she felt as if adrenaline was pumping through her system. She jumped up, snatching the gun from Jesse's grasp, and hitting her over the head with it. Blood immediately began running down her forehead as Jesse slammed against the wall, holding her head in pain.

"_Jesse!_" Justin cried, running over to her as Ariadne ran in Arthur's direction. They both stared at Justin in shock, at how he wasn't paying attention to either one of them.

"What are you doing you _idiot_!" She hissed at him, still holding her head. "Don't let them get away!"

Justin started towards them while Jesse stumbled to get up. Arthur took the gun from Ariadne, pointing it at Justin, and yelled at her to jump out the window. Ariadne did as she was told, almost falling onto the fire escape. Twice as fast as she had run up, she ran down the stairs. Arthur followed, making a clean jump out of the window and easily keeping up with her.

This put Ariadne back where she started before she had been sedated. She was running for dear life from two Cobol agents that—at least one—looked like they wanted to kill her.

Arthur and Ariadne ran down the fire escape and down the street, Jesse and Justin following twenty feet behind them. Ariadne followed Arthur; he seemed to know where he was going. She could smell the ocean as they began weaving their way through cars, people, and bikes. Then she could see the boats and realized he was running for the bay. Ariadne looked back—the two were a bit far behind them now, but they didn't look like they were stopping anytime soon.

They ran onto a helicopter's landing pad. The helicopter's propellers were spinning as if it were about to take off. Jesse and Justin had to push people out of the way to keep up. Arthur and Ariadne stopped at the edge.

"Jump!" Arthur yelled over the sound of the helicopter, not taking a second to look over the edge like Ariadne.

"But—" She began. It was a long drop to the water.

"_Jump!_" He yelled again, panicking as Jesse and Justin came closer. "You'll be fine! Just stay under the platform!"

Then the helicopter took off, blocking the agent's views of Arthur and Ariadne. Ariadne pressed her hands against the wall, propped her feet off, and jumped, not making such a clean dive like the dream. She stayed under the water, swimming until she felt one of the pillars. She heard another body hit the water, and Arthur's head bobbed up the same time hers did.

"Come on," he breathed heavily, blowing water away from his mouth. They both swam as fast as they could to another pillar farther under the platform. They were both all but gasping for air as they grasped onto the cement. Ariadne could hear her heart pounding in her ears, wondering if Jesse and Justin would follow them into the water.


End file.
